1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to medical equipment cleaning. Particularly, the present invention relates to a hydro impact equipment cleaning and disinfecting washer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Medical equipment such as wheelchairs, gurneys, walkers, and the like must often be cleaned and disinfected when used daily in health care facilities. Dirt, food, blood, mucous, and urine are typical substances that collect and build up on many parts of such medical equipment.
The construction of this type of medical equipment poses special problems when cleaning by hand. Various material types such as rubber, plastic, metal and vinyl, plus different sized parts and the number of inter-connecting pieces result in difficult areas to reach when cleaning.
Hand towels, scrub brushes, spray bottles, and shower hoses are typical cleaning utensils that personnel use for hand cleaning. These cleaning utensils require personnel to have direct contact with the equipment when cleaning. With the increasing risk of infectious diseases that can be carried by medical equipment and the general avoidance of having direct contact with unpleasant odor and substances on the wheelchair, personnel tend to avoid thorough cleaning. These factors and conditions often lead to minimum frequency of cleaning and inconsistent quality. General purpose pressure washers and steam cleaners are also used for medical equipment cleaning. Typically, the equipment such as wheelchairs, gurneys and the like are brought to special cleaning areas inside or outside a health care facility to accommodate the wide diffusing of water created by high pressure washing equipment.
While high pressure cleaning is very effective for thorough cleaning, it is disruptive to the medical equipment user since the equipment must be taken from the user during the day when this type of cleaning is typically scheduled and is disruptive to the facility as equipment must be transported by the staff to designated cleaning areas. High pressure cleaning typically uses very hot water and combined with pressure can dissolve grease in the wheel bearings when the spray is directed to the wheel area of the medical equipment. Furthermore, hot water to steam temperatures used by steam cleaners and pressure washers are corrosive to metal tubing that are used in constructing many types of medical equipment. In addition, cleaning quality is dependent on the person using the equipment.
Cleaning outside also causes environmental concern since appropriate drains are not common in parking lots or driveways where cleaning is often done.
There has been devised a portable wheelchair cleaning system that circumvents many of the problems mentioned.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,802 (1994, Soderquist) discloses a wheelchair cleaning system. The system includes a modular assembly, a wash chamber, operator control unit, and a mobile base support structure housing the electromechanical components used to apply the cleaning process. The wash chamber includes a rotating spray arm assembly. The rotating spray arm assembly includes a distribution tube connected on one end to a rotary seal housing and is closed off and coupled to a gear housing on the other end. The gear housing is a chain driven gear connected to a gear motor drive. The distribution tube serves as a drive shaft to provided rotary motion to the spray arm assembly. A spray arm is connected to the distribution tube and extends radially away from the rotating axis of the distribution tube. The spray arm has a plurality of spray nozzles for directing a spray of washing and disinfecting fluids.
A disadvantage of the wheelchair cleaning system is the number of drive components required to drive the rotating spray arm assembly. A separate drive motor is required along with the electrical connections necessary for operation. Further, additional water seals to protect the electrical drive motor and its electrical components are required as well as ground-fault protection in the event a seal deteriorates and cleaning water penetrates to the electric motor and/or its electrical components.
Therefore, what is needed is a system that reduces the number of electrical components to operate the washer. What is also needed is a system that is more energy efficient.